Synchronicity abounds and when those seemingly unrelated elements come together -- magic happens. Life is about patterns and finding the pieces that fit together. So I observe. What seems insignificant alone, coupled with the unexpected, can change your life. So I offer tidbits that may fit your need.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

BUTT IN CHAIR -- and WRITE!

Photo: Gas Pillars in the Eagle Nebula (M16): Pillars of Creation in a Star-Forming Region

Since signing up to Suite 101 where I must write a minimum of 10 articles in three months, I feel more directed, like I've found North again. My compass has been out of whack for most of my life.

My sons were my compass -- literally. When they were mere toddlers I'd take them with me just so they could point the way I should turn, point the route I should take to get there and back again. But since my nest is now empty, I search for another touchstone, another marker that shows me where to go.

Knowing that I'm among some decent writers at Suite 101, some I know and respect, I do not want to write articles based on second or third sources. I want primary sources whenever possible. I want dependable statistics. I want to be proud of what I'm creating and know that I did my best. OK, they are never your best. As soon as something is published you find the error or the words you would tweak. But it is the best I can do at that moment. When I get lazy -- I suck it up and tell myself that this is not the time to just make do.

Since beginning the Suite 101 project, I have now earned a whopping four cents, but I have had more article ideas than I think I ever had. And I feel more confident about crafting the articles because I have an editor and a template guiding me. I'm not just a solitary figure out here in nowhereland, I'm connected, no matter how tenuously and superficially, I am connected to a supportive network of like minded writers and editors. And yes, it does remind me of the newsroom without the political intrigues.

I am doing more surfing, but I am also doing it with a narrower focus. But that doesn't mean serendipity doesn't enter into it. There's a part of me that welcomes this 'just the facts ma'am' approach to writing. And then, like this evening, someone posted a link to Hubble telescope photos and as soon as I clicked on it, a universe of possibilities opened up to me. My fiction loving 'what-if' fantasy maker kicked in and I began contemplating new facts (to me) and how they could be manipulated to make a fascinating story, conflict or yes, even a romance.

And I just may be able to use the Hubble link to write another Suite 101 article. If nothing else, I am curious again. It has been awhile since I was even curious.

Another thing that is happening -- I'm thinking markets. As I write the articles, I think of other markets that it might fit. For the first time in a long time, I want to find new markets, send out queries, and start selling my words. It feels good.

So, whatever it takes to make you write, remind you that you love this work, and help you grow, attain the next level in your writing. DO IT!

Quotes I gotta share...

"The problem is to go into oneself. Go to the darkest parts and the brightest parts and find out what you like and want, and validate that. It's not just a question of art and finding out who you are and making this wonderful thing happen out of yourself, but it's the responsibility to society and caring about other people. A lot of people think art is to be separate, but art is to embrace others - whether to convey something difficult or to talk about light. Work that comes from the spirit, journeys into the spirit are what we need now. Spirit has always been in art." -- Joyce Wieland

""Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity." -- found in a Fortune Cookie

"There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead." -- from The Art of Mending -- Elizabeth Berg

The truth is that many people are self-publishing many books every year and succeeding has a lot to do with understanding what is trying to be done and how. Some of the most famous writers self-published first, including D.H. Lawrence, Anais Nin, James Joyce, and more recently James Redfield, with his Celestine Prophecy. -- J.C. Hewitt

"It's a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography -- but if you write your biography, it's equally assumed you're lying your head off." --Margaret Atwood at the Atwood poetry lecture, in Hay On Wye, Wales, June 1995

There are as many nights as days, and the one is justas long as the other in the year's course. Even a happylife cannot be without a measure of darkness,and the word "happy" would lose its meaning if itwere not balanced by sadness. It is far better to takethings as they come along with patience and equanimity.Carl Jung

As my pediatrician said when I asked him about "-handedness" in my first child, he said that all babies are ambidextrous and inept with both. This has proven to be a useful concept in life, particularly when dealing with certain bureaucracies. -- Jane Steinberg

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae. -- Kurt Vonnegut

The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision.

-- Robyn Davidson

I was once afraid of people saying, Who does she think she is?Now I have the courage to stand and say, This is who I am. -- Oprah Windfrey

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. --Lord Byron

"The short story is like an old friend who calls whenever he is in town. We are happy to hear from it; we casually fan the embers of past intimacies, and buy it lunch." --R. Z. Sheppard

The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything. -- Walter Bagehot

In good writing, words become one with things. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it. --Truman Capote

We cannot choose the things that will happen to us.But

we can choose the attitude we will take toward anything

that happens.Success or failure depends on your attitude.

Alfred A. Montapert

_______

Fear is like a little garden spider that makes us jump back or the poor lost bee on the steering wheel that we blame for our automobile wreck.The problem in fear is our response -- the way we treat animals or insects that frighten us. . . . Fear is also the universal scapegoat we blame when we take flight from intimacy or shrink up inside ourselves in a thousand little ways.

--?xml:namespace>Dan Millman

_______

"All that's different between a rut and the grave is the depth. --Anon.

_______

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke, Irish stateman 1729-1797

_______

"The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time." -- Abraham Lincoln

_______

I think that the people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."--Dwight David Eisenhower, 1959

_______

[It is] a very American lesson: you need not have been

to a place in order to be from there. —Nirej Sekhon

_______

Time is the coin of your life.

It is the only coin you have,

and only you can determine how it will be spent,

Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

-- Carl Sandburg

_______

"Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich." -- Sarah Bernhardt